


Que la folie soit ton amie

by NamelesslyNightlock



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy | Andromache of Scythia is So Done, BAMF Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, BAMF Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Battle Couple, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Confused Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Escape, Fluff, Guns, Humor, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Acting Like a Married Couple, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, M/M, Napoleonic Wars, POV Booker | Sebastien le Livre, POV Outsider, Pre-Canon, Prison, Swordfighting, Swords, Team Feels, fake fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27027259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NamelesslyNightlock/pseuds/NamelesslyNightlock
Summary: Despite only having been with the three immortals for a few weeks, Sébastien already knew that they were all entirely mad. Still, nothing confirmed their madness more than seeing Nicolò and Yusuf’s response to being thrown in a cell.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 57
Kudos: 643





	Que la folie soit ton amie

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you **Rabentochter** for helping with languages and for trying to talk me out of starting this at an almost unreasonable hour before a busy day. I appreciate the effort, even if it was a lost cause ❤︎

Sébastien had only been with the three immortals for a few weeks, but he had already determined that every one of them was entirely mad.

He supposed that was easy to understand—hanging from a rope in the freezing cold for _days_ had been enough to send him into an ugly spiral. He couldn’t imagine what centuries, _millennia_ of death would do to the mind.

Still, regardless of the insane plans and daring exploits that he’d witnessed over the weeks since they’d found him trying to cross Poland in an attempt to get back to France, nothing confirmed their madness more than the moment that Nicolò and Yusuf had suddenly lurched from the ground to tear at each other’s throats.

From the moment the four of them had been thrown in the cell by a mob of Prussian soldiers suspicious of Sébastien’s nationality, the pair had been sat together on the dirt floor, their shoulders brushing as they whispered to each other in a language Sébastien did not know. But he certainly understood them now—they were snarling at each other in a bastard mixture of German and French.

“It is _your_ fault that we are in here,” Nicolò hissed, leaning forward in rage. “If we had taken the route to the south, we could have avoided this troop entirely. They mean to _kill_ us—” 

“No,” Yusuf snapped back, his hands harsh as they gripped the front of Nicolò’s coat. “They want us _alive._ If they wanted to kill us we’d be dead already, they think us spies—”

“ _Quiet,_ you bastard, don’t—”

“Don’t what? Don’t give them the information they already have? _You_ gave us away when you said to surrender rather than fight! We could have won, we could have—”

“Not in a million years—”

“Thanks to you we’ll probably be stuck in this hole for that long—”

“If it weren’t for _you_ we wouldn’t have run into the soldiers in the first place—”

They continued snarling even as their words faded into other languages, things that sounded like _samehni, ya amar_ and _spero davvero che questo funzioni, mia caro,_ every word laced with a layer of hatred Sébastien had never thought the pair capable of showing toward each other. It was like nothing Sébastien had seen from them before—up until now, they had been nothing but soft touches and quiet smiles.

Actually—no, he _had_ seen a spark from Nicolò the once, the first time that Sébastien had realised they were a couple. Nicolò’s eyes had flashed with a fire Sébastien was sure he didn’t want to know, and although it had been calmed by Sébastien’s quick assurances and Yusuf’s hand on his shoulder, that look was not something Sébastien would be quick to forget.

Sébastien could barely tear his eyes from the scene, but he did so in favour of glancing to Andromache. She was watching them almost blankly, not a single discernible expression crossing her face. She only turned when Sébastien nudged her shoulder.

“What?” She asked, her tone almost bored.

Sébastien swallowed. “What if they… kill each other?” They wouldn’t stay dead of course, but—Sébastien couldn’t imagine that the guards outside the bars of their cell witnessing such a thing could be anything but undesirable, to say the least.

Andromache shrugged—and she didn’t even bother to keep her voice quiet when she responded. “If they do, it’s no loss to us. Maybe it’ll mean we get their share of the food.”

Sébastien frowned, and turned back to the fighting couple. Though, he wondered—was it fair to still call them a couple? Surely no loving couple could fight as they were, angry and violent and _vicious._

In fact, even as Sébastien watched, Nicolò’s hands closed around Yusuf’s throat—

The cell door slammed open, hitting the wall behind with a crashing force.

“Hört auf! Nimm deine Hände von ihm—let him go, now!”

It was only because Sébastien was watching so closely that he saw Nicolò’s expression twitch. To the four guards rushing into the room with their blades drawn, it must surely have looked like he only began to squeeze Yusuf’s throat harder, for they charged closer, still shouting—

And in the time it took for Sébastien to draw a single gasped breath, Nicolò’s hands shifted to Yusuf’s shoulders and spun them both around. Yusuf fell to his knees, a hand darting out around one soldier’s ankle—

Nicolò stepped to the side, caught the man’s arm, and broke it with a vicious twist. The crack rang as sharply through the room as the guard’s curse—the curse which cut to a gurgle as his own sword sliced through his throat.

Sébastien’s eyes widened as Nicolò twisted the blade in his hand—he’d taken it from the guard so quickly Sébastien hadn’t seen the movement. That, it seemed, lay the foundation for the rest of the fight. Yusuf was already back on his feet, his hands on a musket that another guard had been too slow to fire. Rather than tear it from the guard’s hands, Yusuf used it to spin the man around so that he landed right onto Nicolò’s blade—then he took the gun for himself.

Another man was not so slow, and was raising his musket for a shot. But Yusuf and Nicolò were now both armed—and Sébastien watched as they stalked closer as one, all remnants of their fight vanished as they seemed to move as two parts of a single whole. This time, Nicolò moved to the fore—he darted out of the way of the fired bullet and knocked the bayonet aside, slashing his acquired sabre across the man’s chest before stepping past him, pushing him back with an elbow to the shoulder blade. The man was impaled on Yusuf’s bayonet in the same moment that Nicolò’s sword met the blade of the last standing soldier.

The last man was older than the others, more experienced in swordplay, and he held Nicolò off for a moment—but a moment was all Yusuf needed to aim his musket. As if he could sense that his partner was ready, Nicolò overshot a parry so that he and his attacker spun to the side—

And Yusuf’s bullet landed solidly in the final guard’s back.

It was over so fast that Andromache had barely pulled herself from the ground. 

“You couldn’t have left one for me?” she asked—though her tone was fond, and Sébastien got the sense that she could have been quick enough to join in if she had wanted to be.

The pair, however, were barely paying her any attention—they were already back to standing opposite each other, Yusuf’s hand gently smoothing down the front of Nicolò’s coat in a mirror image of the violence from earlier.

“I told you it would work,” Yusuf said, his expression impossibly fond.

“I never doubted,” Nicolò replied, smiling just as softly. 

Andromache rolled her eyes. “Someone would have heard that gunshot,” she admonished. “We need to get moving if we want to take out the rest.”

Sébastien blinked, something connecting in his mind which he had somehow missed before. “You _planned_ to kill them?” he asked. “You… _wanted_ to get caught?”

“The men in this stronghold have been capturing travellers along the road and torturing them under the guise of suspecting Napoleon’s spies,” Nicolò answered with a shrug. “We did not mean to get caught, but the opportunity is not to be wasted.”

“Yes, and we should finish this,” said Andromache, taking one of the fallen soldiers’ swords for herself and leading the way to the door. “Let’s go get our weapons and kill some people.”

“You’re all mad,” Sébastien said weakly.

“Ah, don’t worry,” Yusuf replied, patting Sébastien on the shoulder as he passed, Nicolò right at his side. “You’ll be one of us in no time.”

And as he followed them out of the cell door, Sébastien found himself unsure as to whether the notion was comforting or not.


End file.
